Benchmarking softwares need to be updated regularly year after year so that they can squeeze the best out of the latest and the upcoming SoCs and GPUs. That is why GFXBench released the highly anticipated GFXBench 5.0 Aztec Ruins Test.

GFXBench is one of the most common and authoritative GPU test software for mobile platforms. Many people know that its Manhattan and Tyrannosaurus tests have similar status on mobile GPU benchmarks as PCD’s 3DMark. Instead, 3DMark itself in Mobile platforms is less popular.

As the performance of mobile GPUs continues to improve, GFXBench’s test scenarios are constantly being upgraded. The latest GFXBench 5.0 is now officially adding GFXBench 5.0 Aztec Ruins Test scenarios with resolutions up to 2K and supporting DX12 and Vulkan. Such APIs, the requirements are strong enough to squeeze the current mobile phone/tablet Apple A11, Snapdragon 845, and Kirin 970.

GFXBench 5.0’s Aztec Ruins has been in development for more than three years. It was officially announced in 2015 as a development 5.0 test. It was also demonstrated at the GDC conference in 2016 and has only been officially released until now. So far, GFXBench’s advanced testing has four major test scenarios – Manhattan, Manhattan 3.1, Car Chase and Aztec Ruins. The technology is getting more advanced and the requirements are getting higher and higher.

GFXBench 5.0 Aztec Ruins Test – What’s New?

Speaking of the specific requirements of the Aztec Ruins Test, the API it supports is more advanced. In addition to the mobile platform’s Vulkan and OpenGL ES 3.2, there are desktop-level DX12, DX11 and OpenGL. Here, the most important is the cross-platform Vulkan. The official’s introduction mentions that Aztec Ruins’s engine supports multi-threading, post-effect pre-recording command buffers, and deferred rendering.

GFXBench 5.0 Aztec Ruins Test has two levels, High and Normal. The former is the 2560×1440 resolution, the latter is the 1920×1080 resolution, and each level has offscreen and onscreen.

Tests

AztecHigh

AztecNormal

Manhattan3.1

T-Rex

Scene length

64.3s

64.3s

62s

56s

Resolution

2560 x 1440

1920 x 1080

1920 x 1080

1920 x 1080

Compute Shaded Pixels

~1.5% of work

~1.5% of work

~3% of work

~2.4% of work

Total Shaded Pixels

~5.80M / frame
~161% of scene

~2.64M / frame
~127% of scene

~1.90M / frame
~92% of scene

~0.65M / frame
~31% of scene

Av Triangles Per Frame

~440K

~207K

~244K

~724K

Memory B/W Per
Frame(GPU specific)

Vulkan

652MB
(413R + 239W)

268MB
(160R + 107W)

135MB
(88R + 46W)

73MB
(51R + 22W)

OpenGL

514MB
(331R + 182W)

242MB
(154R + 87W)

Although the current test sample is still relatively small, but the new Aztec Ruins scene can definitely be the mobile GPU killer. In addition, iPhone X, iPad Pro in the high-level offscreen test can maintain the number of frames above 10fps. However, the Snapdragon 835 and other Android SoCs have fallen to the single digits. The normal level test is much better on Android SD 845. Yet, with the standard 30fps or above, Apple iPhone X and iPad Pro still lead the way.